The Fockers are officially back in town thanks to Universal Pictures. Recently, a new Meet the Parents movie was announced that would reunite Ben Stiller‘s Greg “Gaylord” Focker and Robert De Niro‘s Jack Byrnes, along with Teri Polo and Blythe Danner as Pamela Martha Focker and Dina Byrnes respectively. While plot details aren’t available yet and the project is still early in the process, there’s no time like the present to catch up with the comedic family before their next get-together. Netflix will make that process a lot easier next month, as the original and its two sequels — Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers — are set to hit the platform on January 1.
Released in 2000, the original Meet the Parents follows Greg through a series of mishaps as he tries to earn the approval of his girlfriend’s parents before he proposes. A nurse with a name he’s embarrassed by, he’s especially worried about meeting the lofty standards of Pam’s retired CIA agent father, Jack, who is fiercely protective of his family and seems to instantly dislike everyone his daughter brings home. Greg’s got a good heart, but that can’t save him from Jack’s comedic wrath as his weekend visit turns into a nightmare full of mistakes that build to him nearly destroying their home. Of the trilogy, director Jim Roach‘s original film penned by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg remains the most highly-regarded of the series thus far with a Certified Fresh 85% score from critics and 79% score from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
While the movie that started it all may be an awkward comedy classic, the sequels are far more divisive. Meet the Fockers pads out an already starry cast with even more firepower, including Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand as Greg’s parents alongside Tim Blake Nelson and the returning Owen Wilson as Pam’s frustratingly perfect ex-boyfriend Kevin. The film revolves around Greg and Pam trying and failing to bring their woefully different parents together with comedic results. Little Fockers appeared to close out the franchise with a final round of misunderstandings for Greg to navigate to satisfy his father-in-law and earn his blessing to be the family’s “Godfocker,” bringing loads more stars along for the occasion, including Jessica Alba, Laura Dern, Kevin Hart, Harvey Keitel, and Jordan Peele, among others. Each one was received far worse by both critics and audiences, with the trilogy capper hitting a low of 9% and 34% respectively.
The ‘Meet the Parents’ Franchise Has Been a Consistent Box Office Winner
For all the criticisms of the latter two films, it’s hard to deny the success of Meet the Parents. In total, the franchise garnered over $1 billion at the box office, with Meet the Fockers setting a high watermark for the franchise with $522.7 million worldwide. The wildly impactful first film, which started as a remake of an independent film of the same name by Greg Glienna and Mary Ruth Clarke, also inspired two television series – NBC’s sitcom In-Laws and the reality series Meet My Folks. The new film will bring back series co-writer Hamburg once more to recapture the magic one more time on the big screen and see where the Circle of Trust lies now after over ten years away.
Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, and Little Fockers arrive on Netflix on January 1. Stay tuned here at Collider for future updates on the latest films and series heading to streaming.
Meet the Parents
- Release Date
- October 6, 2000
- Runtime
- 108 minutes
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